And No One Cried
by Wildhorses1492
Summary: People say they cry a lot when watching this movie or reading this book. Well, I never have. The simple reason for this is that I can't understand what's so sad. There's nothing beautiful, or tragic, or different about 'The Fault In Our Stars'. But there is something striking, and I feel that this subconscious thing is what makes most readers and watchers cry.


She sat in the room, looking around at the charts and the scale, studying the small sink in the narrow counter, and the jars with neat labels describing what they contained. It was small, this examining room in the local medical practice.

It was funny how such a small, organized room could make her frightened. But still, her heart pounded a little faster, and she couldn't help tapping her fingers lightly on the cheap wooden arm of the slightly uncomfortable chair she sat in, waiting for her doctor to return.

And then, in a quiet flurry of white with a silken gold and blue tie, her doctor emerged from out in the hall, her files in hand; files he soon settled on the narrow counter, at the end of which was a trash can. It felt so final, this visit. And that finality made her feel a pang of unease.

Her doctor smiled slowly, but it was not a smile of congratulations or welcome.

He'd seen her in this room and the two others like it too many times. It did not fill him with a sense of accomplishment when he saw someone so young in his practice so often. All his diplomas and all his schooling had not prepared him for the sympathies he would feel, but he did admirably with his ability to hide them behind the official mask of business.

She'd made sure her mother remained behind in the waiting room; she didn't want her here when the doctor told her, because she didn't want to deal with the tears and the denial. She'd resolved herself to the black truth months before, and had learned to go passed the anguish of tears. They helped nothing.

"How long?"

The words hung in the room, and her doctor flattened his fingers out over her records slowly, thoughtfully, and she could sense that he was delaying telling her because he didn't relish the look he would see in her eyes.

Finally, though, he stared back.

"Five months, but more likely four. I am so sorry. I wish I. . . I wish there was some hope I could give you, but . . . I long ago concluded that that would be cruel." He sighed, rubbing his eyes and feeling once again defeated.

"Thank you, doctor. I know you have done the best you could, and it's not your fault I'm dying. Now, I'm going home, and I'd like to spend the rest of my life with my family."

He looked up, surprised by her even voice and even the hint of cheerfulness in her tone. She smiled at him.

"No one lives forever, doctor. Is it better to die old and alone or surrounded by loved ones? I know they will miss me, and I'll certainly miss them, but I have had twenty-nine beautiful years, and I wouldn't trade them for a longer life. Not even now."

He nodded slowly, finding he agreed with her. But she couldn't simply continue on as normal; she would deteriorate, and she needed to prepare her family for that time. "You. . . you won't have full control of your faculties as you come closer to the final stages. You need to prepare your family members for what's to come. I have some books on the subject I could reference for you, but instead I took the liberty of printing these out."

He pulled a thin sheaf of papers from one of her record folders, and she accepted them with a quick swallow, licking her lips to keep them from impeding her speech.

"I'l read them, and then I'll give them to Greg. We'll discuss it, and everyone will be ready when it comes. Thank you again, you have done all you could. Goodbye, doctor."

She stood, carefully folding the papers and putting them inside her purse. He walked back to her records, picking them up while she moved across the small room to the door. As she walked out, carefully leaving the door open behind her, he shifted the folders in his arms and thought about how many men and women he'd had to tell they were going to die. He slumped his shoulders slightly, sighing as he followed in the woman's wake.

 **.**

 **.**

"Why do we do this? He doesn't even know who we are anymore, Mom, and we're his family!"

The seventeen year old girl looked at her mother from the passenger seat of the SUV, her face bearing frustration and bitterness. Her mother glanced off the road and looked at her oldest child, aware of her own pain and grief welling up.

"You remember last summer, when we all went up to the lake?" She waited for her daughter's response, hoping that Chrissy would understand this was hard for everyone, not just her. But she had been close to her father, and this lack of recognition was probably hard to cope with for someone her age.

Finally, Chrissy nodded.

"Yeah, Mom, but what does that have to do with Dad?" She waited, running her hand up and down her seatbelt impatiently, alternating from looking out the window to looking at her mother's profile.

"Well. . . he knew us all that summer. You know that he loved you then, like you know he loved you when you were younger and painted his computer screen with orange and purple paint. Remember that?"

She smiled, thinking back to how angry Derrik had been when he'd walked in and seen the paint dripping from his new, expensive, monitor. But he'd controlled himself, and had asked if his daughter was painting a "Chrissy Original."

"Yeah. . . I remember it, a bit!" Her daughter brightened, a small smile coming to her face.

"Well, he still loves you, the cancer is just supressing his memories of us. He wouldn't want you to get angry about this, he'd want you to remember all the fun we had."

She tried to keep herself from letting tears fall, and inhaled and exhaled slowly, relaxing her tight grip on the steering wheel.

"This is so awful. . . But you're right, he'd want us to be happy when he goes, since he'll remember us again, and all the pain will be gone." Chrissy blinked rapidly, nodding in quick, methodical bobs.

"Yes, sweetie, he would." She whispered back, flicking her turn signal as they came to the hospital exit.

 **.**

 **.**

You feel it, don't you? Something strikes your heart at reading of these people whose time is up too soon. They have lives ahead of them, families too. The woman with four months at most to live had twin boys only eleven months old. The Father who can't remember his family is never going to see his daughter graduate with the highest honors and a scholarship to the college he'd applied to when he was her age.

There's something about lives that end too soon that make us think about, and perhaps even reflect upon, our own lives. The Fault In Our Stars is not beautiful or memorable or sad. It reminds us that we only have this one life and it goes by much faster than we would like or think it to.

Don't waste time crying over a movie that exists to remind us life is brief; don't spend hours or days reading a book that, by the time you come to the end, makes your eyes water with concurring tears. That's not what it's about. It's not to be glorified or pointed to. It's a reminder that we should think about our friends, our lives, our time here, with one another.

It's gone so fast. You can't get that moment you just spent back. Don't waste time crying. Smile and nod, because you know that you're living your life as if each moment was your last.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **This was something I wrote in a fit of confusion and a bit of aggravation, since I've been struggling a long time to understand what's so emotional about _The Fault In Our Stars_. I just DO NOT get it, and I've tried, believe me! But nothing comes to me about it being emotional or sad, it simply leaves me feeling confused and wondering. This little vignette is my take on cancer and the ravages of it on people. I feel like the book and the film made cancer somehow romanticized, and that angered me. **

**Cancer is anger and confusion and disgust and denial and fear and bravery and acceptance. It's getting up at two and four and six to help your family member to the bathroom or take a shower. It's putting up with the screaming and yelling and throwing because they don't remember you or they hate what's happening to them. It's not some pretty teenage love story about books that aren't finished and a boy and a girl who are somehow born under faulted stars. Cancer isn't something to romanticize. It's something to look at squarely and acknowledge that we only have so much time on this earth. Are we gonna spend it crying over lovers or are we going to live every bit of our lives to the best of our ability?**

 **I might get a lot of flames for this, since I know the TFIOS fandom is large, but if I _do_ get flames, that means you simply don't see things in life how I do, and that's all right. Everyone's different and unique and beautiful. I hope all of you readers read well and live life fully, **

**WH**


End file.
